I looked over at her – sandy blonde hair – taking videos with my phone.

Yep. Beautiful.

Me and my daughter at the 2019 Blue Angels flight demonstration.

Practically all of Annapolis clamors to find a spot somewhere near the water to view the planes at 2 pm on the Wednesday of Commissioning Week – those 5 blissful days in May when the Academy sends off its newest batch of brilliant officers to represent our nation across the globe. I give that praise with no sarcasm whatsoever. They are – to a woman and man – among the very best and brightest our country has to offer.

So we’ve come to watch the flight demonstration honoring them every year for the past 12? I’ve lost count. Except when the Blue Angels were grounded because of weather or budget cuts (2013), we were there. With friends or by ourselves, we make this annual pilgrimage to appreciate the display of skill, training, courage, complete trust and raw nerve it takes to fly one combat airplane at 800 mph just inches from another. The show celebrates those who serve. It is about noble character, sacrifice, and working as a team for a cause greater than one’s self.

The elegance and energy of the moment will take your breath away.

And the glinting sun on the wings, the howling engines, and the cooling breeze make me wistful. In this week, more than any other in the year, I feel the passage of time.

My youngest watching in 2015…

and 2019.

My wedding anniversary…the near-end of another school year…the dying away of the spring flowers and the full-on growth of green shade for summer…all are happening right now in this week.

Is there a spot in your geography which makes you grateful? Where you see your days spread out before and behind you? You remember the good and the bad simultaneously? You hold the joy and the pain together as one?

2019. View across the Severn River.

The key to a full heart, I’ve found, is taking an inventory of the GOOD and raising it up high.

Even when there’s hurt. Even when there’s suffering. Even when concern is knocking on your door.

My days are not the same as they were just last year or two years ago, and I’m sure yours aren’t either. There has been success and sadness. There have been sound decisions and bad ones. And there are battles still being waged.

But in our favorite spots we are reminded that we are never independent of God’s grace. His presence – which continually blesses us despite all the ways we continually screw up – is just that – PRESENT. Always.

Every year, I stand on Hospital Point and I just feel so darn thankful to be alive. And this time, I knew why.

“The new ones. For my Anki Overdrive. I didn’t know how to get them on right and he told me today at lower lot. I’m so thankful for him.”

“Oh. Oh yes, that was certainly nice of him. So, you’re thankful for him, and his friendship.”

“Yes.”

End of discussion.

I looked in the rear view mirror to see my little boy smiling to himself.

My son received a car and track system from Santa at Christmas, and got a couple new components for his eighth birthday this past weekend. I didn’t know he had any questions about how these supplementary pieces would work, because he never had questions before. But with kids, sometimes things are hidden from you.

In any case, he has a friend. A friend who helped him. Gave him a few directions while they stood in line, waiting for their parents to pick them up from school.

And my young son is vocalizing his gratitude about that friendship.

Letting his gratitude LIVE in his heart, and not be a fleeting moment of forgotten, “Thanks.”

Wonderful.

Why do we – as adults – make so little of gratitude?

And find it so hard to verbalize it?

Or allow ourselves to get hung up….

On what others might think if we just said the words, “Your kindness means so much to me”?

Or on the timing of such a remark?

Or on the “appropriateness” of it?

Why do we let the moments that touch us – go?

Isn’t life lived in the tiny, every day moments?

Shouldn’t we be most grateful when they are undeniably beautiful?

“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

How do you know when everything is right with the world? For right now. Not the big world – out there. I mean the little world. The one that matters most to you. The one within the walls of your home?

One of the ways I know it is when the people I love express themselves with music.

We were driving home from Philadelphia on Friday night, having spent a relaxing and very happy Thanksgiving with my husband’s family, and then relishing an afternoon of catching up with a close friend whose camaraderie with my husband spans nearly three decades.

We had been fed – in every sense of the word – and I could feel that all was well when the conversation started to wind down and we turned to music. The shuffled iPhone selections weren’t quite as satisfying as they had been, probably because they weren’t being ignored any longer. My husband grabbed the phone and tried out the voice command ‘Siri.’

“Play ‘Thunder Road.'”

‘Thunder Road.’ I couldn’t help but break out into a huge grin as the opening notes hit the speakers.

I pictured the very first Bruce Springsteen concert I’d been to – in 1999 – with my husband and the friend we’d just visited that afternoon. We’d reveled in a 3-hour concert during which Springsteen took NO breaks while still insisting that his band did. I’d never seen a performer so committed and passionate, never realized the depth of his lyrics. We were leaving the stadium when our friend declared, “That was a religious experience.”

An appreciation for beauty can do that to you.

‘Thunder Road’ finished playing.

“Play ‘Jungleland,'” my husband said, and he told our daughter to take off her headphones.

She plays piano, and she liked hearing the piano in this song so much that we played it again. There were other songs, too, a panoply of lovely and lively sound that stirred the minds and hearts of the five people in our car, carrying us home and bringing us together.

Beauty and love will do that – bring people together. And right there, all is well, and we can see the Something Greater than ourselves.